The human rights campaign group Amnesty International shared a video on Facebook to mark its 58th birthday—showing world leaders it has criticized attempting to blow out the candle in its logo.
In the U.S., Amnesty has recently criticized the ongoing use of the death penalty, American military interventions across the world, the plight of migrant children detained at the southern border with Mexico, and the Trump administration’s anti-transgender policies, among other issues. The rights group has also campaigned prominently on the Assad regime’s relentless war crimes in the Syrian civil conflict, supported by Russia, which includes bombardment of civilian areas, torture, chemical attacks and other uses of banned weapons, and the crushing of opposition.
Founded in 1961, Amnesty International was born as a campaign against the imprisonment of two Portuguese students who toasted freedom in a cafe. The British lawyer Peter Benenson rallied people together for the cause of the students and in support of prisoners of conscience more broadly, and Amnesty was born.